From all of us at Stardock's Wincustomize.com we wish you all well with the festive season and have a prosperous New Year ...

Christmas Eve is here, so I thought it would be fun to have a thread dedicated to Christmas and Winter Holiday desktops.  There are so many cool skins in the galleries whether it’s DesktopX gadgets, wallpapers, WindowBlinds skins, etc., there seems like there is something for just about everyone!

Lets see those desktops!

Just a reminder that the deadline for the Winter Dreams contest is getting close!

Winter Holidays .Dream Contest Sponsored by AMD

Contest runs from November 30th to December 31st.  Entries will be accepted until 12pm EST on Thursday, December 31st, 2009.

• WinCustomize Mods and Admins will decide the winner, and will announce soon after depending on the amount of entries submitted.
• Submissions must be in the .dream format for Stardock DeskScapes.
• Animated wallpapers need to be themed for the Winter Holidays.
• When submitting to WinCustomize, tag your upload with #winterdreams behind the title (example: Christmas Trees - #winterdreams).  Submissions not tagged will not be eligible.
• Dreams cannot be clips from Christmas/Winter Holiday movies.
• Entries will be judged on quality and adherence to contest theme.
• Stardock employees/contractors are not eligible for prizes

Prizes:

1st place – $75 Impulse Gift Certificate, AMD 4890 Video Card (OEM) courtesy of AMD.

2nd place – 1 year Object Desktop subscription

3rd place – WindowBlinds 7 or ObjectDock Plus, copy of DeskScapes for a friend

The holiday break is here, but there is always time to feature some of the awesome skins that come in over the weekend.  It’s good to see some of you are skinning instead of braving the shopping crowds!

Check out the featured picks!

The final edition of This Week in Skinning for 2009 is here.  This edition is filled with holiday skins, but due to the uploading issues this week, the uploads weren’t as full as other weeks.  Still, we have some great skins to check out, and I’m looking out for some cool holiday desktops to feature.

Check out this weeks TWiS!

Stardock is excited to announce the release of IconPackager 5.  IconPackager lets users change nearly every icon in Windows including the use of “icon packs” to change all at once.  It has gained nearly 4 million downloads on Download.com, and is the easiest way to change your system icons.  You can view a full visual walkthrough of IconPackager here.

The IconPackager 5 update includes:

• Supports Windows 7 and Windows 7 specific icons
• Optionally will restart Explorer to update live folder icons
• Can now be set to apply only specific icons in a package
• Performance improvements in applying

IconPackager is part of the Object Desktop suite of desktop enhancements, and can be purchased stand-alone for $9.95.

For more information and links to a free trial, visit http://www.stardock.com/products/iconpackager/.

Brad Wardell, aka Frogboy, has created a video tour of WindowBlinds showing it in action, and showing some of his favorite skins from the WindowBlinds galleries.

SkinStudio 7 has been released today.  SkinStudio is an application that allows users to create and modify visual styles, also known as skins, for Windows 7, Vista, and  XP.  These skins can then be applied using WindowBlinds.  WindowBlinds 7 was also recently released, and SkinStudio 7 now supports the new features that were included in WB7.

Some of these include:

• Support for new WindowBlinds 7 features
• Overhaul of the user interface
• Easier access to layers, improved code editor in Pro version
• Ability to create UIS0 skins
• Various fixes and updates

SkinStudio is a free download which can be found here.  The Pro version has several advanced features and is part of the Object Desktop suite, or available for $19.95.

More info can be found at www.skinstudio.net.

Fences Pro is a program that helps you organize your desktop and can hide your icons when they are not in use with the simple click of your mouse.  Fences Pro is the follow-up to Stardock’s popular freeware program fences which has become the most popular desktop enhancement on CNET’s Download.com since its release earlier this Fall.

Fences Pro adds a number of compelling new features to give users more control over their desktop icons. These features include:

• Having a default fence automatically pick up new icons as they get added to your desktop
  
• Automatically organize icons by file type, name, size and more
  
• Have fences and their contents be semi-transparent until mouse-over.

Fences Pro is available as a stand-alone for $19.95 and as part of Object Desktop, a suite of desktop customization software for $49.95. Users who purchase Object Desktop not only get all the programs of Object Desktop but also a 1-year subscription to ObjectDesktop.NET which provides users access to updates and new programs added to Object Desktop. Both Fences Pro and Object Desktop require Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7.

More information can be found at www.stardock.com/products/fences.